The particular dialect or language that a person chooses to use on any occasion is called a code 1456 Copyright © 2022 The Author IDEAS is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 License Issued by English study program of IAIN Palopo IDEAS Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) Volume 10, Number 2, December 2022 pp. 1456 - 1470 Transition, Action, Details; Helping the Students to Write Easily Abdul Aziz Rifaat1, Nyayu Yayu Suryani2 azizlie2@gmail.com Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Kesehatan Siti Khadijah, Palembang, Sumatera Selatan Received: 2022-10-28 Accepted: 2022-12-29 DOI: 10.24256/ideas.v10i2.3120 Abstract Writing means implementing all parts of its stages. Once the writer misses one of its stages, the product of the writing should not as expect. The TAD is one of the writing strategies to help the writer easier to write especially in recount text. The objective of this study was to find out the significant difference in writing achievement before and after the students was taught by using The TAD strategy. The pre-experimental design was used in this study. The population and the sample of this study was all 3rd semester bachelor’s degree of nursing students at the institute of health science Siti Khadijah Palembang in academic year 2020/2021. The total number of the sample was 30 students. The total sampling technique was used to select the sample in this study. The writing test was used as an instrument to collect the data in this study. The test was given before the treatment as a pretest and after the treatment as a posttest. The result of the study showed that there was a significant difference before and after the students were taught by using the TAD strategy. Keywords: ,action, detail; recount text; transition writing http://u.lipi.go.id/1457703302 IDEAS, Vol. 10, No. 2, December 2022 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1457 Introduction Learning English seems to be a complicated thing to be learned by some students. Learning English means learning all skills and aspects in English itself. The students tend to interested in one skill or two skills. Not many of them like all of the skills in English. The teacher in this case should know what method should be appropriate to what skill in what group of the students. Ismukoco (2014) describes some factors that could be the possibility answer the reason why the students afraid in learning English including writing skill involve in it. The first factor is that the teacher has no appropriate method in teaching English. The other factor is that the teacher did a mistake in determining learning paradigm in teaching English. The third factor is that the teacher did not discuss the appropriate vocabularies to the topic learned. And the last factor is that the teacher did not drill the students how to pronounce the vocabularies and language function. Principally, writing is the complex process of some stages in doing it. Doing writing should do all of those writing stages. Those writing stages are setting goals, generating ideas, organizing information, selecting an appropriate language, making a draft, reading and reviewing, revising, and editing (Peha, 2003). When the writer writes, all of those stages should be passed one by one in order to get got writing product. Caulfield (2020) describes that the writing process should pass five basic steps. The illustration as below: Figure 1. Five basic steps in writing (Caulfield, 2020) The Writing Process Prewrite Plan & Outline Write First Draft Redraft & Revise Edit & Proofread Abdul Aziz Rifaat, Nyayu Yayu Suryani Transition, Action, Details; Helping the Students to Write Easily 1458 The product of writing would be better if the writer passes all those stages. The writer might miss one or two of those stages but the product would not be as good as if the writer passes all those stages. Unfortunately, the students (especially at the institute of health science Siti Khadijah Palembang) sometimes are in doubt to begin writing. There were some reasons why they are in doubt to begin writing. One of the major reasons is they do not know how they begin writing. In another word, they do not know what technique/method/approach/strategy that should be used to explore their ideas into the paragraph. In addition, the teacher tends to use the same method in teaching writing especially in recount text. The students usually asked to write their personal experience without any guidance or definite method used by the teacher. This common approach sometimes makes the students difficult to create a good writing product. The students tend to write individually without any discussion and guidance provided by the teacher or even they have any idea at all to begin writing. The important thing that should be underlined is that writing is a complex process. As a complex process, every writer (in this case the students) should write based on appropriate strategy in order to produce a good writing. There are many types of writing. One type of those types is a recount text. Recount text is a kind of text that contains a factual event in the past experienced by an individual (Purwanti, 2013). The person retells the personal experience in the past time or retells someone personal experience also called recount text. In addition, Budiyani (2013) asserts that recount text is a text genre in English retelling a story, event, or experience in the past time. Actually, teaching the students writing a recount text is the same as teaching the students how to rewrite their or someone’s experience, story, or biography. The students can explore their vocabularies and grammatical skill especially simple past tense when practicing writing a recount text. The three generic structures in recount text are generally described by Budiyani (2013), there are orientation, events, reorientation. As described, orientation is the first part of the recount text. The content of this first part tells who in the text is, where the event is, and when it happens. The events tell the phenomenon that happens in the past chronologically. Reorientation is the conclusion of the text. However, reorientation is not always a part of the text. Depends on the writer, the reorientation should be included or not. Purwanti (2013) adds that writing a recount text looks like writing a personal experience. In her opinion, the most important thing that should be done is brainstorming. In this part, she suggests to use 5 W + 1 H to make the writer easier to brainstorm. Once the brainstorming was done, each point could be elaborated in some paragraphs so that those paragraphs become a good recount text. A certain technique in teaching writing is possibly appropriate for a type of writing, a condition of the sample, a group of students, or even a huge group of students. However, it does not mean that a certain technique could be applied or appropriate to all of the groups of students, all types of writing, or all conditions of the sample. Transition, Action, Details (TAD) strategy offers the writer, in this case, IDEAS, Vol. 10, No. 2, December 2022 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1459 the students who study a recount text type of writing, to write in detail. The students could be easier to express the ideas in detail. TAD strategy is the plan activities to support the students constructing the events or experience chronologically into a paragraph or paragraphs (Nui, 2013). The TAD strategy is useful for the students to manage the plan of the event, experience, or story. The students could be interested in using this strategy. They can explore the memories by combining them to the vocabularies so that the flow of writing paragraphs seems easier to be done. TAD strategy is done by making a graphic organizer separating its parts. A graphic organizer in teaching writing lets the students feel confident in the writing. Sharrock (2008) states one of the simple ways to relate the ideas within a text is by using a graphic organizer. Tad strategy allows the students to construct their ideas in the form of the graphic organizer. Tad strategy itself has three columns and some rows depend on the needs. Every column plays its part. The first column is the transition column, the second is the action column, and the last one is the detail column. TAD strategy offers the students to write effectively and chronologically because this strategy consists of three parts and every part has its’ function in helping the students to write easily (Peha, 2003). Those three parts are transitions, actions, and details. Transition is an introductory phrase. It has a function as the beginning of the sentence. The phrase or phrases make the sentences in the paragraph composed neatly and easy to be understood. The second part is actions. In this part, Peha (2003) asserts the writer writes all factual things that should be written. The last part is details. Here, all supporting information for the action column are presented. Normally, some questions related to the action column are answered in the details column to explain clearly what is in the action column. Again, Peha (2003) shows how the writer can apply the tad strategy as an example shown below: Transition Action Details (introduce the action) (describe what happened) (answer audience questions) - We go almost every year Abdul Aziz Rifaat, Nyayu Yayu Suryani Transition, Action, Details; Helping the Students to Write Easily 1460 Last summer, I went on vacation with my family to the ocean. - It’s fun because there’s a lot to do. - I get to do a lot of exploring with my dog. - Etc. Another example with different topic was shown as below: Transition Action Details (introduce the action) When I heard my dog start after the animal, (describe what happened) I immediately stopped and turned around to watch him. (answer audience questions) - He doesn’t usually just run off like that - I was surprised and a little scared As soon as I saw where he was headed, I called out to him to get him to stop. - He didn’t seem to notice. He just kept going. - I had a feeling something bad was going to happen. IDEAS, Vol. 10, No. 2, December 2022 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1461 Muhallim (2015), in his study, explains the characteristics of the TAD strategy. The first characteristic is that tad strategy uses step by step approach. For this reason, the writers are able to elaborate on what they are going to write clearly and chronologically. Another characteristic is that the TAD strategy uses a graphic organizer. As stated above, there are some benefits of using a graphic organizer. It helps the writers to concept, to understand, and even to construct the paragraph well. The last characteristic is that the TAD strategy fits for any composition such as narrative and recount. Based on the explanation above, it was interested to conduct a study concerning on was there any significant difference in writing achievement before and after the students were taught by using the TAD strategy. Method The Study Design The pre-experimental design through one-group pretest-posttest design was used in this study. This design was used because there was no control variable and the sample was not taken randomly. The paradigm of this design was shown as below (Sugiyono, 2016): Figure 2. Pre-experimental design; one-group pretest-posttest design Notes: O1 : pretest score (before the treatment) X : treatment O2 : posttest score (after treatment) The students were given a pretest (O1) before the treatment was implemented. After the pretest was given, in this case writing test, the tad strategy was implemented (X). Finally, the posttest (O2) was given in order to compare the difference in writing achievement before and after the treatment was implemented. Since the pandemic of COVID-19 had been continued, this study was applied through O1 X O2 Abdul Aziz Rifaat, Nyayu Yayu Suryani Transition, Action, Details; Helping the Students to Write Easily 1462 WhatsApp application and Zoom Meeting application in implementing the TAD strategy for the treatment. The students as the sample were monitored and guided online. The Sample Population of the Study The population and the sample of this study was all 3rd semester bachelor degree of nursing students at the institute of health science Siti Khadijah Palembang in the academic year 2020/2021. Sugiyono (2016) asserts that sample is a part or a group of the total population. The sample could be taken because of some reasons such as the limitation of time, budget, and so on. The total number of the sample in this study was 30 students. The sample was taken based on saturation sampling. Saturation sampling was used to as a sampling method because all of the population was chosen as the sample (Sugiyono, 2016). Since the total number of the population was 30 students, all of them were chosen as the sample in this study. The study was done from October to December 2020. Data collection and analysis The writing test was used as an instrument to collect the data in this study. The test was given before the treatment as a pretest and after the treatment as a posttest. The students were asked to write an essay in form of a recount text with some topics that had been prepared. The essay should be at least 3 paragraphs contain 120 or more words if possible. At the end of each test, the students’ essay was scored. The students’ score was analyzed by using brown’s theory where the components of its theory are organization, content, grammar, punctuation, and expression. The scale of each component is as follow (Brown, 2004 cited in Simhadi, 2017): Table 1. Brown’s theory in scoring the writing test No Aspect Excell ent to good (20- 18) Good to adequa te (17- 15) Adeq uate to fair (14- 12) Unacc eptabl e (11- 6) Not colleg e- level work (5-1) 1 Organiz ation 2 Content 3 Gramm ar 4 Punctua tion 5 Expressi on IDEAS, Vol. 10, No. 2, December 2022 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1463 Based on this scale, the total scores of each student then will be divided into five (based on the total number of the aspects). For example, student A got 5 for the organization, 10 for content, 10 for grammar, 12 for punctuation, and 13 for expression. The total score of student A was 50. Then, 50 divided into 5 equals 10. So, the score of student A was 10 with the level unacceptable. The following level was summarized; Table 2. Students’ writing score and level SCORE (TOTAL SCORE:5) Level 18-20 Good to excellent 15-17 Adequate to good 12-14 Fair to adequate 6-11 Unacceptable 1-5 Not college level The next step is analyzing the data. After all, scores were collected; the data were analyzed by using the statistical package of social science (SPSS) program. Comparing the mean of the pretest and posttest to find the significant difference before and after the treatment was the main part of this step. Result Findings The test as an instrument to collect the data was given twice before the treatment was applied as a pretest and after the treatment was applied as a posttest. After the pretest was given to the sample, it was found that the lowest score from all of the students was 7 and the highest score from all of the students was 14 while the mean score was 10.3. The table below shows the pretest scores of the sample: Abdul Aziz Rifaat, Nyayu Yayu Suryani Transition, Action, Details; Helping the Students to Write Easily 1464 Table 3. Students’ pretest score No Initial Pretest score Level 1 A 10 Unacceptable 2 B 9 Unacceptable 3 C 11 Unacceptable 4 D 12 Fair-Adequate 5 E 11 Unacceptable 6 F 9 Unacceptable 7 G 7 Unacceptable 8 H 9 Unacceptable 9 I 9 Unacceptable 10 J 10 Unacceptable 11 K 14 Fair-Adequate 12 L 10 Unacceptable 13 M 11 Unacceptable 14 N 12 Fair-Adequate 15 O 7 Unacceptable 16 P 8 Unacceptable 17 Q 10 Unacceptable 18 R 11 Unacceptable 19 S 7 Unacceptable 20 T 12 Fair-Adequate 21 U 10 Unacceptable 22 N 11 Unacceptable 23 V 13 Fair-Adequate 24 W 12 Fair-Adequate 25 X 12 Fair-Adequate 26 Y 9 Unacceptable 27 Z 10 Unacceptable 28 Aa 9 Unacceptable 29 Ab 13 Fair-Adequate 30 Ac 12 Fair-Adequate IDEAS, Vol. 10, No. 2, December 2022 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1465 Moreover, after the posttest was given, it was found that the lowest score from all of the students was 8 and the higher score from all of the students was 17 while the mean score was 12.2. The table below shows the posttest scores of the sample: Table 4. Students’ posttest score No Initial Posttest score Level 1 A 13 Fair-Adequate 2 B 12 Fair-Adequate 3 C 13 Fair-Adequate 4 D 12 Fair-Adequate 5 E 14 Fair-Adequate 6 F 8 Unacceptable 7 G 12 Fair-Adequate 8 H 9 Unacceptable 9 I 11 Unacceptable 10 J 12 Fair-Adequate 11 K 17 Adequate-Good 12 L 12 Fair-Adequate 13 M 12 Fair-Adequate 14 N 11 Unacceptable 15 O 9 Unacceptable 16 P 11 Unacceptable 17 Q 13 Fair-Adequate 18 R 15 Adequate-Good 19 S 8 Unacceptable 20 T 12 Fair-Adequate 21 U 12 Fair-Adequate 22 V 12 Fair-Adequate 23 W 12 Fair-Adequate 24 X 12 Fair-Adequate 25 Y 13 Fair-Adequate 26 Z 11 Unacceptable 27 Aa 16 Adequate-Good 28 Ab 14 Fair-Adequate Abdul Aziz Rifaat, Nyayu Yayu Suryani Transition, Action, Details; Helping the Students to Write Easily 1466 29 Ac 16 Adequate-Good 30 Ad 12 Fair-Adequate The paired sample statistics of 30 students showed that the mean of students’ pretest was 10.33 and the mean of students’ posttest was 12.20. The standard deviation of the pretest was 1.826 and the standard deviation of the posttest was 2.124. Since the mean of the posttest was higher than the mean of the pretest, it means that there was a mean difference of the students’ score in writing achievement. The table is shown as below: Table 5. Paired sample statistics Mea n N Std. Deviatio n Std. Error mean Pair 1 Pret est 10.33 30 1.826 .333 Postt est 12.20 30 2.124 .388 The paired sample correlation showed that the Pearson correlation was 0.587. Since the Pearson correlation was higher than 0.5, it means that there was a correlation between the pretest variable and the posttest variable. The table below shows the paired sample correlation of the pretest and posttest: Table 6. Paired Sample Correlations N Correlati on Sig. Pair 1 Pretest &posttest 30 .587 .001 The mean difference between pretest and posttest was 1.867. Additionally, the standard deviation was 1.814 at the significant (2 tailed) level was 0.00. Since it was lower than 0.05, it can be inferred that there was a significant difference in writing achievement before and after the students were taught by using the TAD strategy. The paired sample test is shown in the table below: Table 7. Paired Sample Test Paired differences T Df Sig. (2-tailed) IDEAS, Vol. 10, No. 2, December 2022 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1467 M e a n Std . De via tio n Std. Err or me an 95% confide nce interval of the differen ce Lo w er Up per P ai r 1 Pre tes t - po stt est - 1. 8 6 7 1.8 14 .33 1 - 2. 54 4 - 1.1 89 -5.635 29 .000 Based on this study, most of the students got a better score in the posttest if compared to the score in the pretest. The diagram below describes the students’ level in the pretest and in the posttest: Abdul Aziz Rifaat, Nyayu Yayu Suryani Transition, Action, Details; Helping the Students to Write Easily 1468 There were 21 students at an unacceptable level, 9 students at fair to an adequate level, 0 students at not college level, adequate to good, and good to excellent. Moreover, there were 8students at an unacceptable level, 18 students at a fair to an adequate level, 4 students at adequate to good level, 0 student at college level and a good to an excellent level. Discussion The result of the study showed that the students got a better score in writing tests after the TAD strategy was applied. The mean score of the students in the posttest was 12.20 while the mean score of the pretest was 10.33. The gain between the pretest and posttest was 1.87. The result of this study showed the significant improvement of the TAD strategy in teaching writing especially recount text. However, the gain not only influenced by the TAD strategy itself but also could be influenced by other factors. Since the process of doing this study was not directly facing the students, some external factors were also contributed to this gain. The reason that why the study was applied online is that because the area and the institution where the sample exist still has no permission from the government to held the offline meeting. The direct meeting possibly affects the different results of the study. The direct meeting could let the students intensely discuss each other and share the information each other. Not only among them, but laso the teacher could guide the students intensely if the direct meeting was held. Some facts during this study hampered the process of the study. The limitation of internet connection, time agreement, or distracted duration was the example of obstructions in this study. Otherwise, the fact that the process of doing this study was through additional application could not be denied. Those applications also contributed to the result of the study. It does not mean if the TAD strategy contributed nothing to this study. This strategy helps the students organize the sentences, focus on the content of the text, revise wrong structured and punctuation directly, and choose the pretest0 10 20 30 Students' Level pretest posttest IDEAS, Vol. 10, No. 2, December 2022 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1469 appropriate expression for each sentence. Conclusions The TAD strategy significantly improved the students writing achievement in general. The students got a better score after the TAD strategy was applied. Most of the aspects (organization, content, grammar, punctuation, and expression) improved significantly. This strategy helps the students to focus on what the students are going to write or do draft before writing down the sentences. However, the direct meeting could be the better method in applying this TAD strategy because the teacher could guide the students intensively and the students could communicate directly with each other. It is suggested to the English teachers especially at STIK Siti Khadijah Palembang to use the TAD as an alternative strategy in teaching writing. Additionally, the English teacher should be more creative in teaching English especially for non-English major students. The students are suggested to use TAD strategy in writing a recount text and to improve their writing skill by discussing the new topic to be written with their friends. The writer suggests also to the other researchers to investigate other studies relating to writing especially recount text. References Brown, D. 2004. Language Assessment. Principles and Classroom Practices. Longman. Budiyani, S. 2013. Writing Tips. PT Citra Aji Pratama: Yogyakarta. Caulfield, J. 2020. A Step-by-Step Guide to The Writing Process. Https://www.scribbr.com/academic-writing/writing-process. Accessed on November, 26th 2020. Harmer, J., (2001). How to Teach English . England: Pearson Longman. Harmer, J., (2011). How to Teach Writing. England and Associated Companies Throughout the world. Ediaburgh Gate: Harlow Essex. Khadijah, K., & Pasaribu, A. N. (2022). The Effect of Reading Interest on Reading Coprehension of Grade XII High School Students of SMA Negeri 1 Brandan Barat. Jurnal Ilmiah Aquinas, 5 (1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.54367/aquinas.v5i1.1668 Abdul Aziz Rifaat, Nyayu Yayu Suryani Transition, Action, Details; Helping the Students to Write Easily 1470 Langan, J., (2008). Exploring Writing Paragraph and Essays. New York: The McGraw- Hill Companies. Ismukoco. 2014. Joyful Learning; Information Gap Activities. http://bdksurabaya- kemenag.id/artikel/detil/207. Accessed on December, 25th 2020. Masruddin, Masruddin, The Efficacy of Using Short Video Through Group Work in Teaching Speaking to Indonesian English As Foreign Language (EFL) Students (September 1, 2018). Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume 9. Number 3. September 2018 . Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3258815 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3258815 Masruddin, M. (2016). The Efficacy of Using Language Experience Approach in Teaching Reading Fluency to Indonesian EFL Students . Arab World English Journal,7 (4). DOI: dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol7no4.21 Marzelia, A. (2014). The Use of Clustering Technique to Improve Students’ skill in Writing Hortatory Exposition Text. Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 1. Muhallim. 2015. The Implementation of Transition-Action-Details Strategy to Improve the Students, Writing Ability in Recount Text. Exposure Journal. 4 (2). 246-268. Nui, K. M. 2013. Writing Resource Guide. Learning to Write. Honolulu: University of Hawaii. Peha, S 2003. The Writing Teacher’s Strategy Guide. New York: TTMS, Inc. Purwanti, 2013. Let’s Write English Text. PT Citra Aji Pratama: Yogyakarta. Raimes, A., (1983). Techniques in Teaching Writing, New York: Oxford University Press Sharrock, T. 2008. The Effect of Graphic Organizers on Students’ Writing. Kennesaw, Ga: Kennesaw State University Simhadi, F. 2017. Developing Effective Teaching Through Thematic Progression Pattern with Cooperative Learning (A Study Conducted in Paragraph Writing Class). Tidar University and Graha Cendekia Publisher. Sugiyono. 2016. Metode Penelitian Kuantitatif, Kualitatif, Dan R&D. AlfabetaCV: Bandung https://ssrn.com/abstract=3258815 https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3258815